detail of the woods
by Wagandea
Summary: There are worse things to be than a witch. Severus/James, Southern Gothic AU


_"we never saw any ghosts, not in the junkyard, not in the woods, no matter how hard we shouted at jesus to push a few our way. maybe we were the wicked ones instead. maybe we were the hauntin', all sharp teeth and rot-black ribs."_

 _-blacklung, keaton st. james_

* * *

The preacher's son has nothing to offer him but Severus takes it anyway. A mouthful of soap suds, a kick to the ribs, a rope hoisting him up by the ankle. He takes it and he bottles it up for a rainy day, bottles up the hate and the resentment and unfairness of it all and keeps it for a spell later.

The preacher's son has nothing to offer him but a wide, mocking grin and the rhythmic motion of an apple being juggled in one hand. Severus watches it go with dark eyes, _up down up down_ , watches it bounce from Potter's calloused fingers. Too busy watching, he almost misses the part where Potter, gaze never leaving Severus's face, nods in his direction and says, all faux-casual, "Alright, Evans?"

"Come on, Sev, let's _go_ ," Lily hisses, one hand curled around the handles of a shopping basket and the other around Severus's arm, doing her best to drag him from the produce department before he has the chance to land a punch on Potter, or she does - at the moment, Severus isn't sure which is more likely.

He doesn't move. Potter huffs, shakes his head in disappointment. The apple stills in his hand and Severus is still watching, still watching as he raises it to his lips, sinks white teeth through the skin and into the flesh, a clean, crisp sound. Severus knows that sound, the sound of twigs under his feet, the sound of hollow bird bones under his fingers, the sound of the apple under James Potter's teeth.

The apple juice spills from Potter's lips, runs down his chin. Lily tugs at Severus's arm, harder this time. There's a sneer playing across his lips when he looks away, and Potter's voice echoes in his head when he turns on his heel and walks away, soft and grating:

"See you around then, _Sev_."

* * *

He does. Sooner rather than later, the yellowed silver of a waning gibbous moon shining high in the navy sky, the black silhouettes of tree branches forming a halo around Potter's head.

"I'd be careful wandering about here after dark," Potter warns him, and it almost sounds serious, until he lifts an eyebrow and adds, too light and airy for it to not be meaningful, "there's wolves in these woods, you know."

He smiles, the skin around his eyes crinkling up with how genuine the expression is, a private joke he finds terribly amusing but Severus isn't privy to. He doesn't ask. He can't explain why that flash of white teeth from Potter's smile makes him feel the way he does, dry mouth and clammy hands and racing pulse. He holds his ground all the same.

"Thank you for your concern, Potter, but I can take care of myself," Severus snaps back, gritting his teeth, squaring his shoulders, dark eyes not wavering from Potter's face. Potter, who just tips his head to the side, smile fading.

"Course you can. I know what you and Sirius's brother get up to at night. All that black magic shit. You should hear what people say about you in town. Swear to God, someone's gonna try burning you two at the stake one of these days, couple of witches."

"And what a tragedy that would be for you," Severus sneers. When he steps back his shoulder blades scrape against the rough bark of a tree through his sweater. "Would you be the one piling on kindling or the one striking the match?"

The halo of branches around Potter's head looks like antlers at the right angle, and for a moment the moonlight glints off his eyes in a way that makes them fluoresce, opaque, in the dark. Severus blinks and it's gone, Potter's eyes hazel once more. "Funny, I don't see you denying it, Snape."

"There are worse things to be than a witch."

"Yes," Potter agrees, and when he draws back his eyes flash again. "There are."

* * *

Regulus is trying to teach Lily to read tea leaves when Severus returns from the forest, the herbs Lily requested for a spell in tow. Neither of them believe in divination, necessarily, but they humor Regulus anyway, and no one can deny he has an intrinsic sense for when things are going to happen and why. Maybe it's an ability unique to him, like Lily's spells and rituals and Severus's potions and remedies. They balance each other out, the three sole members of their coven as Lily the insists on calling it. Severus prefers the term friends.

Whatever gift Regulus has, Lily doesn't seem to have a talent for it, as evidenced by the fact that she groans and shoves the teacup back in Regulus's direction.

"I can't see anything, honest. Just a blob of soggy tea leaves, it isn't even a proper shape. Make Sev try, then, he actually likes tea."

"Thank you for the warm welcome, Lily," Severus shoots back dryly, but she just grins in response to his short look, and Severus can't keep the corners of his lips from twitching upward into the barest hint of a smile. "Alright then, pour me a cup."

He deposits the herbs into the cauldron on the floor, and moves to occupy the seat Lily just vacated. Regulus meets his eyes evenly when he pours, curiosity and the lazy flickering of the candlelight glinting off of his charcoal eyes.

"What kept you so long?" he asks, passing the teacup over, and Severus gets the distinct impression that Regulus already knows. "Lily was beginning to worry."

"I _wasn't._ "

 _Ran into Potter in the forest_ , he doesn't say, and downs his scalding tea in one go. "Lost track of time," he says instead, when his mouth starts burning, and maybe it's because he's so keen on avoiding Regulus's gaze that he spots another set of eyes out the window.

White eyes, opaque eyes, little round disks reflecting the light from Regulus's candles.

Just a deer. It's just a deer.

Severus's hands are shaking. He looks down into the dregs of his teacup but it holds no answers, just a spiderweb of sodden tea leaves. Like branches, he thinks.

"Like antlers," he hears Regulus say, distantly, and his larger hands come to cover Severus's trembling ones, still them. "Severus?"

"I thought I saw something in the window."

"Severus." Regulus's quiet voice breaks through his focus, through his thoughts, and the question he asks ricochets around in Severus's head before he even opens his mouth. "What did you run into, in the forest?"

Severus closes his eyes, blocks out the tea leaf antlers. _There are worse things to be than a witch. Yes, there are._ "I don't know."

* * *

Potter follows him. Into town to run errands, to the library, to the graveyard. Everywhere he turns, Potter just around the corner, talking with Regulus's brother or reading a book or harassing Lily - essentially, anything but paying attention to him.

Severus knows better.

Potter's constant presence isn't as threatening as it should be. It is less like an animal stalking its prey and more like he's been watched, herded. It makes him uneasy. Neither of them say anything. Sometimes, Severus catches him looking.

"It's Sunday," he points out, dully, flicking cigarette ash into the water when Potter follows him to the place where the forest meets the swamp, where Severus's shoes sink into the marshy ground and hold him captive. "I'd have thought the preacher's precious son would be in church."

"I had something better to do," Potter says and shrugs, picking his way across the sodden ground. He's too close. He's always too close.

"Like follow me around."

"Like keep an eye out for you," Potter counters, and Severus's eyes don't travel down the hard line of his jaw, down his neck.

"You hate me," Severus supplies helpfully, petulant, blows smoke in Potter's direction. His boots sink deeper into the ground. Potter takes a step closer.

"Maybe. But you should hear the stuff they're saying about you, and I bet it's all true. Black magic shit. It's dangerous."

Severus's dark eyes snap back up to Potter's face, the words spilling softly from his mouth like cigarette smoke. "Dangerous. Of course. You've no idea what I can do."

But instead of the apprehension or fear that Severus wants to see, there's an unsettling hunger in Potter's hazel eyes.

"You know," Potter says, too casual, and plucks the cigarette from Severus's fingers, raising it to his own lips. "There's more than just wolves in these woods."

* * *

He tried to give Lily a kiss, just once, last winter caught outside in the rain and the wind, but she didn't want it. _It seemed like the right thing to do_ , he had said, stumbling over his words awkwardly, and she took his hand and smiled, sadly. _Let's go inside before we catch a cold, Sev_.

He kissed Regulus during a thunderstorm, lightning through the window the only illumination during the resulting power outage. Regulus, though, has responded in kind, with desperation, with roaming hands and open mouths. For three short weeks he had been on cloud nine, but there is only so much fumbling around one can do behind closed doors.

So when Potter corners him again, the warm summer rain soaking through Severus's clothes and plastering them to his body, an inescapable suffocating mugginess to the air, Severus knows what he wants. But he can't do this again, can't do this with _him_ of all people -

"What do you want, Potter?" he snarls instead, fingers splayed out over the soaked through fabric of Potter's t-shirt.

"I thought that was obvious."

It isn't. Potter kisses him and it still isn't. And somewhere between Potter's tongue and his teeth, between his strong hands snaking up under Severus's shirt, between the rain and the humidity and the frantic way they're trying not to tear each other apart, Severus loses himself. Where are they? His back hits the rough bark of a tree. They're in the forest. They're always in the forest. He can't remember being anywhere else.

* * *

He dreams of the rough scrape of bark on skin, of the scratches he left down Potter's back, of the rain pelting against his skin. He dreams something's pulling him down into the marsh, or up into the trees. In his dream there are no wolves in the woods. In his dream the deer circle him instead. In the dream he'll let the demons of the forest devour him, or maybe he'll let Potter do it, and finds there isn't really a difference.

Regulus asks him about it in the morning over a cup of tea and an open book of dream symbolism. Severus doesn't know what to tell him, says he didn't dream at all. He shouldn't be having to clean it up like this.

Regulus just frowns, and laces their fingers together over the table. It isn't as comforting as it once was. "Be careful in the woods," he says, and he knows, he has to. "I don't like what's out there."

* * *

Potter is eating an apple with a pocket knife, a flash of silver between his fingers that Severus can't help but follow. It's early morning, the fog obscuring everything below their waists, but Potter knows the woods like the back of his hand, is leading Severus between the trees and underbrush on a path Severus has no option but to trust. There are twigs in Potter's hair. They've never ventured this far in before.

"Here," Potter says, cuts off another piece of apple. Severus has no choice but to take it, the juice sticky on his fingers, and Potter's eyes don't leave his face when slowly, finally, he raises it to his lips.

He thinks he should feel different, somehow, placing the apple on his tongue, chewing it. There's nothing, save for a pinprick of disappointment, but what exactly he's disappointed in he can't say. He swallows. Potter is still watching him.

* * *

 _A/N: Written for the Last Ship Sailing Competition and What Does This Remind You Of? Challenge._


End file.
